ooo

Rebecca and Billy had just scrambled to safety on a grassy plateau when the White Umbrella facility exploded far below. The entire process seemed to bend time; Rebecca saw the flash from within, walls bulging outwards, and a final tremendous burst of light. Nearly a quarter mile of the surrounding forest was leveled in the blast, and Rebecca felt a last stab of antipathy for Umbrella. Even in its last moments the company had destroyed acres of wildlife. Not to mention the mansion itself, nothing'll ever grow there ever again. Who knows what kind of hazardous waste particles are in the air now? I could be contaminated just after being in there, it could get into the city water supply...

"Rest in peace, Marcus," Billy said, shaking his head. "The man died as he lived. Completely fucking nuts."

Rebecca turned to look at him. Early dawn cast Billy in pale pink-gold light, accentuating his dark hair and sharp, chiseled features. He stared at where the mansion had been, furrowing his brow with an expression of pity and contempt. It was hard to tell, but under the dirt and sweat and dried blood and grime and debris and miscellaneous rotted flesh particles she thought he was--well, handsome. Maybe just a little. Not that it mattered or anything.

We're alive. We're probably both going to need decades of therapy, but we're alive. Now what? Her future beckoned in the form of another ancient mansion, a red roof barely visible at the foot of the mountain. Right then the very sight of it was horrible. All Rebecca wanted was to go home, shower, bury herself under her soft green sheets with the little white polka dots and sleep forever.

"So what will the great Billy Coen do now?" Rebecca asked, suddenly very conscious of the sound of her voice in the quiet morning.

He planted both his palms down flat on the ground and sat back, yawning. "The great Billy Coen wants a bucket of buffalo wings from Cluck-U and a cold beer," he declared. Then, almost as an afterthought, "I'd like to see if my jacket's still there."

"Your jacket?"

"Yeah, I had my old flannel jacket down in the van when it was attacked. It used to belong to my grandfather, and I wanted to take it with me, but it was caught in the door and I didn't have much time..." He tilted his head at Rebecca. "What do you say, Becky? You think it'd still be back there?"

In the ten hours they'd spent together, Billy had said 'Rebecca' exactly two times: once when they first met, as a sarcastic snipe about her being 'Officer Chambers', and once after she'd lied to Enrico. On the other hand, a few people had called her 'Becky' before, but no one had ever managed to make it sound quite so cheeky and carefree. "I don't see why it wouldn't be." Rebecca carefully sat down next to him, resisting the urge to just flop back in the grass. She had stopped caring what he thought of her a long time ago, but she was spurred on by an inexplicable curiosity. Where would he go? How would he get out of Raccoon? Had he made contact with his family before the attempted execution?

"Okay, so you get your jacket," she said. "What's next?"

"Canada, I guess. Spend a couple weeks in Montana, get some papers drafted, then head for the border. It's harder than getting into Mexico, but there are a lot less bounty hunters up north, too. I think I can make it. Hell, getting killed in prison seems halfway decent after this."

Getting killed...

Rebecca had an idea. An incredible, amazing, and absurd idea.

"Maybe I can help," she said, and moved forward to touch the ends of his hair. Billy jerked back as though he'd taken a blow to the gut. When he saw Rebecca holding out her hand he stopped, unsure, his eyes wide.

"Let me help," Rebecca said again. This time Billy stayed still, although he was staring at her with such bewilderment and terror that Rebecca wondered if she'd spontaneously mutated into a Tyrant. She held her hand at the back of his head, gently taking a few locks of his longer hair between her fingers.

"Rebecca..."

The solemnity of his expression would have been frightening in another time; maybe in another time, she would have wanted to do something else besides laugh. She tightened her grip and yanked hard.

Billy leapt to his feet. "Jesus Christ! What the hell was that?!"

"Evidence for the lab," she said serenely, opening one of the empty glass bottles in her waist pack and putting the hairs inside. It was tough to keep a straight face when he was acting like she'd betrayed him. "I didn't want to ask you because I knew you'd make a big deal about it."

"What do you mean, 'evidence'?"

She paused to collect herself, stood up, and gave him a look of studied detachment. "I found these hairs adjacent to a canine corpse and what appeared to be non-infected human remains. There was blood at the scene but due to the likelihood of contamination and virus toxicity I decided against collection. The nature of the explosion makes it unlikely that anyone wounded would have escaped alive."

"Rebecca," Billy began.

Twice in two minutes! Either he was running out of demeaning nicknames or he was taking this even more seriously than she'd expected. "Pretty good, huh?" Rebecca gave a little bow and held out her hands self-consciously. "You could be declared legally dead within months, or maybe even weeks. I bet you can slip through the bureaucracy."

"Don't you goddamn dare," he said. This time it really did sound like a threat.

Rebecca's heart sank. She had thought Billy wasn't like the other older people she knew; if anyone would have understood breaking a few rules, it should have been him. But his countenance was disapproving and his tone stern. Although Rebecca was stung by the reaction, she tried not to let it show. "Why shouldn't I dare?" she asked, a bit petulant.

He flung his arm out furiously, the steel handcuffs jangling in time. "You can't just fake evidence at a crime scene, especially not one like this! How long do you think it'll be before the feds get here? They'll find out what really happened soon enough and bust you for felony perjury and God knows what else!"

"Once they do find out what happened here, I don't think they'll pay any attention to a lie that--"

"My life was ruined because of a lie!"

So the secret was out, and the ambiguous bad-boy persona with it: Billy's only crime had been bad luck. Rebecca had thought she would be astonished by the real truth but instead found herself nodding, like she'd just remembered the words to a song she knew long ago.

Billy was considerably slower to catch on, as nearly a minute passed before he seemed to realize what he'd said. He stopped mid-snarl and spun around, determinedly staring at the ground. For the first time in almost a day Rebecca wanted to smile.

"Oh, don't be so melodramatic," she scolded. "I already knew that anyways."

He turned around again just as quickly. Even if he really did want to distance himself from his reputation, he still had that whole male-pride thing going on. "What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, annoyed.

"I told you. I could tell from the very beginning." Okay, so that wasn't quite true, but Billy didn't know that, did he? Rebecca waggled a finger in his face. "I had to study criminal psychology as part of my S.T.A.R.S. training! You aren't the type at all. I'm more of a criminal than you are."

"You? Officer Goody-Two-Shoes?"

"Hey, nobody made you help me out all those times, you know! Most hardened killers don't try to be Prince Charming."

The words had no sooner left her mouth than Rebecca realized how terrible they were. She'd only meant to imply he was the real goody-two-shoes, with some image that was dorky and stereotypical. He would never let her live this down, would he?

"Prince Charming, huh?" Billy said, smirking. "Guess you have been fantasizing about me."

"Keep dreaming." Rebecca waved him off but was secretly glad for the reaction. With Marcus eliminated and the monsters gone--at least some of them--she felt strangely disconnected from Billy. She had only ever known him in hell; now, at the edges of Raccoon Forest that felt like Eden, it was hard to know what to say. Lilting birdsongs drifted inbetween their silence.

Billy folded his arms and looked away. "I'm wasting my time, aren't I? You've already made up your mind. No matter what I try to tell you, you're going to do it anyway."

"I'm impressed. Most people don't know me that well." She laughed at the thought, that he could somehow already have such an intimate understanding of her character, then abruptly stopped. If it was true, it wasn't funny.

"Well, since Billy Coen is dead..."

Metal clanked lightly against metal as Billy fingered his dogtags. His face took on a faraway look as he spoke. "One of the first things you get in basic. You never take 'em off, not even to sleep. It was helpful, because sometimes..." He scratched his head. "Sometimes a landmine hit a convoy and all you had left were torsos."

I couldn't imagine that, Rebecca wanted to say, but reminded herself that she very well could. She'd seen more than her fair share of disembodied torsos now. On the other hand, the violence Billy had seen in the Marines was completely different. It depressed Rebecca to think that Umbrella was only a negligible fraction of the world's horrors.

"...didn't take when I was court-martialed. I guess they figured I was gonna go in 'em too. Maybe they thought I needed the comfort."

"Give them to me," Rebecca said impulsively.

"Huh?"

"I'll take them."

He quirked a brow. "For evidence?"

"What? No, I mean...just to have." Rebecca colored, in that instant hating Billy for being so obtuse; it was a gesture, couldn't he take it and be grateful? She hadn't tried doing anything particularly nice for a boy since Gregg Mendlessohn in the third grade, and he'd called her 'sicky girl'. The memory still made her wince. "Maybe they'll give me good luck on future missions."

"And if anybody asks why you're carrying the dogtags of a convicted killer...?"

She shrugged. "I'll say they're on sale at Spencer's."

"Great. All I've ever wanted is to be an icon to edgy high school kids," he muttered, but reached up to undo the chain. He handed the tags over to Rebecca, who dutifully fastened them around her neck. It seemed heavy and ostentatious as they reflected rays of the warm summer sun. Rebecca slipped the tags down beneath her shirt, shivering as they fell.

"Now don't say anything gross," she ordered.

"Wasn't gonna."

"Good!"

"...but if that's what you want..."

"Shut up." Rebecca thought for a bit before pulling a dark ring out of her pack. The sides of the band met and twisted together in a knot. "Here, have this," she offered. "It's a ring clamp from my first day in the physics lab at Vanderbilt. I was so nervous I didn't even put the apparatus together correctly, and my work went everywhere. The professor told me not to forget the little things, that the little things were the most important. I took the ring...to remind me. I've carried it with me everywhere since then, and it's brought me good luck. But after all," and she held the ring up in her open palm, "we're trading, right? If I've got your good luck, I don't need mine."

"I wouldn't call it good luck, exactly." Billy wrinkled his nose. "Maybe you've forgotten, but I haven't been doing so hot."

"You're on this side of the mansion, aren't you?"

"True enough." He looked at the ring with amusement as he picked it up.

It wasn't until Billy had slid the ring onto his finger that Rebecca realized how strange it must have seemed, trading jewelry like magic talismans in a fairy tale, and when he slid the ring on the fourth finger of his left hand Rebecca's heart skipped a beat. His left hand? But why? No, it doesn't matter, he's just dumb!

But this is important, I feel like this is important, somehow...

"Hey, fits pretty good. Got a nice neo-industrial look to it."

What if he goes to Canada and tells people we're married? What if this already counts as a Canadian marriage? Rebecca blinked several times, lost somewhere between a body that could barely move and a mind that wouldn't stop. She felt dizzy, nauseous, and tired, more tired than she'd ever thought possible. Relax. Take a few breaths. Lie down if you have to. You are not Canadian married.

"Thanks, babydoll," he said, smiling.

"Sure."

They stood there for a handful of seconds, grinning at each other like idiots; there was nothing else for them to do. The notion of parting ways was distant and impossible. When Rebecca's radio interrupted with a harsh buzz she was thankful, if only so that she could remember what she was supposed to be doing.

"Chambers! Come in, Chambers!"

"Captain Marini!" Rebecca exclaimed. "Where are you?"

"You're alive! After all this, I ought--" The radio's reception cut out briefly, then returned. "--don't know what could have been worth breaking a direct command! Irons will hear about this!" he barked.

Billy turned around. Somehow the slightest motion of his arm was enough to finally loose his handcuffs, which dropped uselessly into the grass. Rebecca had to cover her mouth to keep from laughing out loud at his expression.

"...but never mind that, you're alive," Marini finished grudgingly. He was strict but impulsive, and a notoriously poor enforcer. The chances of Irons hearing about even a major disciplinary infraction amidst reports of corporate conspiracy and cannibal zombies were less than none. "We got problems, Chambers. The equipment malfunctions are worse than we thought."

"What do you mean?" Rebecca asked, watching as Billy heaved with rage over the conveniently broken handcuffs.

"We checked everything. The helicopter, the radios, even our generators are broken. Wires were cut and crossed. Fuel is missing. It's not an accidental malfunction, either. Everything's broken so that--" The radio sputtered again. "--for maybe an hour or two, then break down. It looks like sabotage."

"Sabotage?" she echoed. Her mind began racing again, now full of strange and inexplicable scenarios. "That doesn't make any sense. Why would anybody want to sabotage our equipment? Who would have access to it all?"

"Motherfucking worthless piece of shit didn't come off when I blasted the fucking chain drops off now piece of shit falls apart for no reason like it should've twelve hours ago such a piece of shit--"

Marini's voice rose in alarm. "Chambers? What's that noise?"

"Um, it's nothing," she replied hastily. She gestured for Billy to be quiet, but he was obviously preoccupied. Rebecca backed away and depressed the radio's transmitter button several times in rapid succession. By now she was too far gone to feel anything like guilt. "Captain Marini! You're breaking up! Hurry, what should I do?"

"The rest of Bravo is setting up camp at the old Arklay house to wait for new supplies. We're at 21-3 north and 158-2; shouldn't be too far from where you are now. We're set to rendezvous with Alpha Team at 1945."

A rendezvous meant more zombies, more killing, more work. There really was no rest for the weary, not even when the weary could barely stand up. What little hope Rebecca had nourished for a medical exemption and speedy dismissal were promptly dashed. She glanced upwards, where the sun was still tender with rosy newness and morning had just reached all across the west. Do they have food at camp? I could eat there and sleep through the day until we have to meet with Alpha, maybe... "Roger that, Captain. I'll be there. Chambers out."

The conversation ended, and it felt as though the interruption had never happened at all: Rebecca was immediately back to her normal routine of watching Billy be angry and break things. "--piece of shit!" Billy swore, hurling the mocking handcuffs off the cliffside. They sailed through the air in a long arc before disappearing with a glimmer of light. Rebecca and Billy stared, silent, thoughtful.

"So Billy Coen really is gone," Rebecca said.

Billy nodded grimly. "All the world's women just woke up with broken hearts."

"You overestimate our pity."

"That was cold, sweetheart. But it's okay, you're forgiven. I know that's how you want it."

"Like I said, keep dreaming." Rebecca shoved past him and lay down under a shady tree. She had no sooner stretched out when the full force of exhaustion hit, abrupt as whiplash. Her limbs seemed dull and unbearably heavy in the dewy grass. "We're meeting Alpha Team at the other mansion later in the evening," she said, as though Billy needed to know or even cared.

"You aren't more hungry than tired? I could tear up a whole cow."

"No way. I'd always rather sleep than eat."

"You're crazy."

"Mmm."

Billy sat beside her, one arm folded over his knee. "And even if you weren't crazy, this place is zombie dog central. You'd have a safer nap in the middle of the highway."

Rebecca envisioned herself lying in the middle of the interstate, napping peacefully while Billy ran around punching oncoming vehicles. The image alone made her burst out laughing, and mirth quickly gave way to hysterics.And there'd be an eighteen-wheeler, he'd grab it by the bumper and flip it over and go "Hell yeah!", or something, and it would explode into tons of slimy leeches... It was a full minute before Rebecca calmed enough to breathe regularly. Billy made no attempt to stop her; he seemed to understand what she was feeling.

"I probably would," Rebecca agreed. "But you'd be there to take care of me, right?" That came out weird, she thought, although she wasn't entirely sure why. I should try to explain. "That is, see, when you said highway, I pictured myself on the road with you, like..." The laughter resurfaced again, bubbling up into giggles through her parched throat even as she willed it to stop. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It doesn't make any sense, I know, but it's...it's..."

Billy reached out with his left hand, the ringed hand, and brushed away a few stray bangs that had fallen into her eyes. "Nah, it's okay, princess," he murmured. "Keep dreaming."

She let her eyes close at his touch and smiled faintly.

"Thanks..."

ooo

Rebecca was back in one of the mansion's many makeshift storage rooms, crammed with peculiar odds and ends amidst the Victorian-era furnishings. A set of red velvet drapes over the window fluttered in the open air. Strewn haphazardly around the room were folders, empty vials, antique typewriters with old ink ribbons, crumpled papers, and a single mahogany box. Rebecca had no sooner seen the box than she knew she needed to open it.

The box came apart with a burst of hot lymph, as though it were a festering sore. Well, that's odd, Rebecca noted, but gave it no further attention. Inside the box was a little wooden ballerina that spun in a slow, jerky circle. There was no tune, only a man's voice:

"We didn't know what to do when we reached the village."

Lightning flashed and Rebecca fell headfirst into darkness. The lymph had turned to dried, crackling blood on the back of her pale knuckles. When she held up her hands to look closer the blood began to snake up her arms in intricate patterns. For some reason its motion felt cold and acutely painful, like being ensnared in wires. Rebecca struggled vainly to free herself, but the blood flowed on with impossible vigor. As she thrashed and flailed she heard the man's voice again.

"It's not like somebody just mixed up the names. We should've been at a gorge at least half a mile long before it emptied into the river. A lot of hostile groups camp out in places like that, where the ground is unstable and the jungle's just waiting to eat you alive."

"Conrad," Rebecca declared automatically, because she had been transported back into second-semester contemporary literature and Professor Barnhardt was obsessed with Conrad. She'd only gotten a B-plus overall and barely aced the final; it had been her worst class. If it hadn't been for all her biology and chemistry courses she might not have graduated valedictorian.

I wonder if Barnhardt will let me go to the bathroom? I need to wash off my hands. The blood had stopped its greedy stretching and become benign.

"The mission was compromised as soon as they saw us. There are places that live on selling information about Americans. Our interpreter told us that many of the rebels we were seeking came from the village where we were. He said it would be hard to negotiate."

From his place at the podium old Professor Barnhardt nodded at her and Rebecca eagerly left, leaving all her books behind. To her disappointment the classroom door led back to the same storage room in the Umbrella mansion. It seemed there was just no getting away from there, even after it'd been blown up. Oh well. Rebecca sighed and bent down by the music box again, where the ballerina was still dancing.

"We were ordered to round up the villagers and search the area. Everything was routine until we found a cache of semiautomatics and ammunition. It looked like these weren't normal civilians. They could have been trading with the rebels. Someone suggested they might be hostages, or bait..."

A zombie burst out from the window in a shower of broken glass. Rebecca moved instinctively to shoot, then realized she wasn't holding a gun. Her eyes went wide when she recognized the zombie's leathery features. It was Edward; rather, it was what remained of Edward after aggressive decomposition.

He saw Rebecca and smiled. Black spiders trickled out the corner of his mouth. "Rebecca!" he said, his voice the kindly baritone it had always been.

"Edward! Edward, what...?" Rebecca reached out to take his hand, which sloughed off into single slimy pieces. She cringed. "Edward...what happened to you? Are you still alive?"

"You did a great job! I'm happy for you." He laid his single remaining hand on her shoulder and squeezed it gently. When Rebecca moved to embrace him he crumbled into a pile of dust. The spiders dropped to the ground and scattered outwards. The wooden ballerina shuddered, clicked, and finally stopped.

"It's not so bad to be guilty," said the man in the infinite distance. "It's easier to take the fall than to accept the men you trusted with your life would abandon you. If you can't believe in them, you can't believe in what they stand for."

Rebecca decided the man had killed Edward, somehow, that if the man hadn't spoken and that horrible little figure hadn't been dancing then Edward would still be alive. It was everyone's fault but her own. She hadn't killed him, it wasn't her, it couldn't have been. "Stop it!" she begged. "Please, stop it! Stop talking!"

"I'd be glad to die, as long as it means America is still real. That's why I joined..."

"Don't say any more! Please!"

"What should we have done? It keeps me up at night."

Somewhere a bell tolled and Rebecca fell to her knees. She felt as if she'd been paralyzed with terror and awe, like she was in the presence of a great deity. Gusts of bone-chilling wind blew through the open window. It occured to Rebecca that soon she would die, as inevitable as the next day. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

"I don't remember what happened out there, but I know I didn't stop it. Whatever else anyone says, I was on duty when twenty-three civilians died at our hands. I didn't say I was innocent because I don't think I am. Nobody's innocent...

"Except maybe you, sugarplum. You shouldn't have had a part in this."

The cluster of Edward's spiders crawled up Rebecca's motionless form and onto her face. They wormed their way into Rebecca's mouth as she sobbed, their skinny little legs catching between her teeth and lips. Rebecca was too lost, too distraught to spit them out, and simply choked. Our Father, who art in heaven...God save me, please!

"...stop eating my hair."

ooo

A low guttural belch jolted Rebecca from her sleep. She stirred, only to find herself constrained by a tight sleeping bag. Scattered around her were piles of Bravo Team's weaponry, medical supplies and communication devices. The sun was just setting behind a nearby mansion with wide red gables. To Rebecca's immediate relief, it wasn't the same place she had just escaped, but its design was eerily similar. The red-and-white alternating trim seemed to confirm her worst fear: Umbrella, Umbrella, this is Umbrella, they're still here...

Richard leaned against a pickup truck, clutching a can of cheap local beer. He laughed aloud at Rebecca's obvious confusion. "Well, hey! And here I thought I'd have to wake you up! How you feelin', kiddo?"

The 'kiddo' grated on Rebecca's ears. "I...don't know," she said, suddenly nauseous. When had she fallen asleep? She had a vague sense that she'd heard something important, but couldn't identify it. Her dream had been lost. "Where's Billy?" she asked uncertainly.

"Billy...? Oh, the convict! Enrico was able to trace him to the train where you were, actually. It's amazing you never encountered him. Then again, I suppose he was a top-grade sniper for a reason. Seems like he didn't make it out, though." Richard shook his head. He looked tired but optimistic. "Poor bastard. All that for nothing, and he wasn't even gonna die."

Rebecca could sense her stomach twisting. "He wasn't going to die?" she repeated.

"That's right, you slept through it all. Once we finally set up a working radio we got in contact with the guys down at Ragithon. Turns out the governor was waiting for the convoy. Just the other day there were a whole series of arrests down in Uganda that are connected to Coen's case. The governor had granted him a stay of execution, but he might have even been free in a few months. Like I said, poor bastard. It's a sick world. And Edward..."

Billy Billy Billy Billy wasn't going to die, Billy would have lived if he'd gone on, Billy would've been safe if he hadn't saved me. Rebecca held the sleeping bag tightly for warmth. Her head throbbed.

Richard squatted down next to her and put a friendly hand on her back. "It's gonna be okay, kiddo. You gotta be strong. Special Forces is rough work."

"Where are the others?" Rebecca asked, staring straight ahead.

"We're supposed to rendezvous with Alpha Team in two hours. Now that we have some stuff working and real vehicles, Enrico and the others went downtown for pizza. What can I say, we get all the essentials." Richard gave Rebecca a one-armed hug. He must have sensed her discomfort, because he let go and went back to the pickup truck, whistling.

"Enrico thinks our stuff was sabotaged. It sure looks that way, but I don't think that makes any sense. Who'd do that, huh? Nobody in the department's got any reason to want Bravo Team to fail. I think it's probably just a bad coincidence. We get so much from the same supplier anyway. Not even Irons would want us screwed over like this."

Rebecca struggled to focus her thoughts. It was some time before she could remember what she should've asked immediately. "How did I get here?"

"Kindness of strangers, if you can believe that. We were setting up some tents when a hunter came in with you over his back like a sack of potatoes. Said he'd found you passed out alone in a clearing."

"A hunter?"

"Looked like it. He was..." Richard set down the beer and traced the shape of a tall, broad male figure with both hands. "Built like a tank, one of those old mountain-man types, in a flannel jacket and weird pants. There was so much dirt on his face and clothes we couldn't see much else. He carried a rifle, too, so he had to be up there shooting something. Probably all those cannibal dogs. You'd have to, to live around here."

While standing on the hill Rebecca had barely been able to see the other mansion far away--she'd figured it was several miles away, at least, and the wrecked van was further still. All the way down the mountain, through the forest...

Why didn't he wake me? Why don't I remember?

Did he say goodbye?

Did I?

"I wonder if that hunter saw Billy," she said numbly.

Richard laughed and shook his head again, this time with amazement. "You're really something, kiddo. After everything you've been through tonight and you're still thinking about that criminal?"

Rebecca felt the weight of the dogtags against her skin. "Yeah," she mumbled, feeling very much alone. "I guess I am."

The sun gasped its surrender with one last flash of light and disappeared behind Spencer Mansion.